


Running Towards, Or Maybe Away

by biggestbaddestwolf



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Glee
Genre: Crossover, Crossover Pairings, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-12
Updated: 2013-03-12
Packaged: 2017-12-05 02:55:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/718058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/biggestbaddestwolf/pseuds/biggestbaddestwolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Faith Lehane runs across Noah Puckerman one night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Running Towards, Or Maybe Away

**Author's Note:**

> Canon compliant up to season seven of Buffy; approximately season 2 of Glee

He wanted to get away from Lima, Ohio, and she just wanted to get away from everything.  
  
They meet outside a 7/11 at three in the morning. He’s two dollars short of what he needs to pay for his gas, and she’s pocketing some Slim Jims because she’s been more than two dollars short for a few weeks now. They look straight at each other, and they both know that the other’s about to take advantage of the fact that the attendant’s a half-asleep old man that really can’t be bothered to get into it with a couple of twenty-somethings.  
  
 He smirks, she rolls her eyes. He takes the initiative to start a conversation. She remembers when she would go for just that. More than just go for it; she’d have him wrapped around her finger in a couple of minutes, seconds if she was in a good mood. She’d skip flirting; they be going at it in the bathroom of the 7/11 before he tried to ask what her name was. She’d have rocked his world and had his head spinning under the flickering fluorescent light bulb, and he’d thank her for it.  
  
 But that was a long time ago. Now she just worries that if he spends more than a couple of minutes near her, he’ll end up dead somehow. She’s toxic like that. The slayer curse, she’s been told.  
  
 But he persists for a good five or ten minutes. Easy smiles (bullshit smiles, because she can tell when something’s all an act, and this is such an act that she can choke on it) and easier pickup lines. She rebuffs him at first. Doesn’t reject him, but keeps her eyes rolling, keeps her feet moving. She doesn’t comment when he pockets a small bottle of Jack, but thinks about the bottle of Jack Daniels she tucked away in the duffel bag she’s got slung over her shoulder.  
  
 Something in that cocky smile ends up making her snort back in amusement. “I’m not your speed, Hawkman, so it’s best if you just slow down, okay?” That just makes his grin the slightest bit wider, and the boy’s got a great smile, she thinks. Then she remembers that boys  with great smiles get their life expectancy halved when they get near a slayer. And if they’re near her, well, it’s likely that she’ll end up knifing them in the back somehow. Even if she doesn’t mean to.  
He’s about to respond when someone strolls into the 7/11. Someones, actually, and Faith gets that familiar feeling down her spine before she even turns. The slayer curse, she thinks to herself, it’s got wicked timing.  
  
 She tells him to go hide in the bathroom while she tenses for a fight, and he looks at her suspiciously. He reads her body language in a way that, for the first time since they started talking, isn’t appreciative. He just knows that tension, she realizes, even if he probably just knows it from bar brawls. His gaze goes past her, over her shoulder, and she turns her head in that direction. Three vamps. Easy enough to deal with, but she’s got two regular people there in front of her and she can’t let them get involved. Get dead.  
  
 The vampires notice her, and their smiles are twisted even before they vamp out. She hears him curse behind her, but she doesn’t really have time to pay attention to that.  
  
 She dives into the fight like she always does. Fewer quips than B, she thinks idly, but plenty enough attitude to make up for it. She doesn’t toy with the vampires anymore. Even in a fight that she knows she can win, like this one, it’s a desperate fast frenzy to end it. She tries not to have fun, she tries not to get lost in the adrenaline and the moment, and she tries to feel really bad that she has to fight at all. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.  
  
 This time, there’s still a rush when she finishes dusting the last vampire. She breaths hard, her heart pounds in her ears, and she feels alive. Dusting dead things always has that effect.  
  
 The old attendant is still behind the counter. She’d missed him falling asleep before the vampires came in. He didn’t even hear the beef jerky display topple over.  
  
 She turns behind her and sees him standing there. There’s a broken bottle of Jack in his hand- she hadn’t noticed him get a hit in, but hell, he’s still standing. That means something, right? She saved him. Not B, not Angel, not anybody else. She did. That should make her feel good.  
  
 “That was…” His eyes are wide. “Dude.”  
  
 She snorts. “Yeah. Dude.” She shakes her head. “I’ve gotta bounce. It’s late.” She’s still breathing quickly as she looks him up and down. “You should get out of here.” Away from me, is what she doesn’t say. Even if slaying still gets her up and going, and she’s considering slip-sliding into old habits that have her riding him in the bathroom.  
  
 He shakes his head. “You just killed …what, vampires? Demons? That was insane.”  
  
 “It’s not what you think it is-”  
  
 “You saved my ass,” he says, running a hand over his hair. “I at least owe you breakfast.”  
  
 “With what money?” She retorts.  
  
 He shrugs, placing the broken bottle aside and grabbing a few bags of popcorn. “Presto. Insta-breakfast.” She just stares at him. He’s not running, which usually means they’re stupid. Stupid or suicidal or both. She wonders which one he is. “Come on, you’re nowhere near a bus station anyway- what are you gonna do, hike it? A babe like you is gonna end up dealing with a creeper or something.” He pauses, looks at the rest of the rest stop. “Not that you can’t handle it, but come on, at least you know I know to keep my hands off.”   
  
Bullshit he knows that, she thinks. But he’s right about the bus station, and she’s tired of walking. And if she’s going to run for a little while longer, she might as well do it in a car with a boy with a great smile.  
  
She walks with him out the door and tries to convince herself this won’t end with his blood on her hands.


End file.
